7 uses
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Definition
intimidating or impressive — arousing fear or admiration due to impressiveness or challenge
- Last o'er his brows his fourfold helm he placed, With nodding horse-hair formidably graced; And in his hands two steely javelins wields, That blaze to heaven, and lighten all the fields.Book 11 (9% in)
- Eager they view'd the prospect dark and deep, Vast was the leap, and headlong hung the steep; The bottom bare, (a formidable show!Book 12 (14% in)
- Then Teucer laid his faithless bow aside; The fourfold buckler o'er his shoulder tied; On his brave head a crested helm he placed, With nodding horse-hair formidably graced; A dart, whose point with brass refulgent shines, The warrior wields; and his great brother joins.Book 15 (63% in)
- All breathing death, around the chief they stand, A grim, terrific, formidable band: Grim as voracious wolves, that seek the springs(244) When scalding thirst their burning bowels wrings; When some tall stag, fresh-slaughtered in the wood, Has drench'd their wide insatiate throats with blood, To the black fount they rush, a hideous throng, With paunch distended, and with lolling tongue, Fire fills their eye, their black jaws belch the gore, And gorged with slaughter still they thirst...Book 16 (20% in)
- Then trembled Greece: the flight Peneleus led; For as the brave Boeotian turn'd his head To face the foe, Polydamas drew near, And razed his shoulder with a shorten'd spear: By Hector wounded, Leitus quits the plain, Pierced through the wrist; and raging with the pain, Grasps his once formidable lance in vain.Book 17 (80% in)
- Now lost is all that formidable air; The face divine, and long-descending hair, Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand; Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land, Given to the rage of an insulting throng, And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along!Book 22 (77% in)
- When Priam wishes to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in Phrygia, on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting the formidable Amazons.Footnotes (41% in)
There are no more uses of "formidable" in The Iliad by Homer - (translated by: Pope).
Typical Usage
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